


An Attendant Lord

by itchyfingers



Series: Londinium Productions [2]
Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Love, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 20,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itchyfingers/pseuds/itchyfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Multiple people asked for more detail about Benedict and Tora’s story from The Center Cannot Hold. If you haven’t read that work, you probably should at some point. This story does contain spoilers for that work, but can be read on its own if you want. Be warned, though, that I am writing this with the assumption you have read Center. This will not be a full-blown story (I say now) but instead will recount certain important moments from their life.</p><p>That said, I present you the first installment in Ben and Tora’s story together - their first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Meeting

“Oh my fuck, you’re Benedict Cumberbatch.”

Victoria heard the words come out of her mouth and wished that the ground would rise up and swallow her whole. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m normally not that much of a—, I was just expecting Anna, and, oh, I think I’m going to die of embarrassment now.”

Ben laughed as the woman standing on the front step went through paroxysms of shame over her behavior. “It’s alright, love, I bet this face would be a bit of a shock to anyone who wasn’t expecting it. Come in.” He took the bag of food from her as she entered so she could take off her coat and she followed him into the kitchen.

“You really shouldn’t do that, you know,” she said.

“Do what?” he asked, as he stowed the containers of take-away in the fridge.

“Put yourself down like that. You wouldn’t let your friends talk that way about themselves; you shouldn’t do it to yourself.”

He shut the fridge door and turned to look at her where she stood, leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. “Yes, but I’ve spent years looking at my face and—,”

She shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing around her face. “Nope, no ifs, ands, or buts. Maybe you should just grow up and accept that you’ve matured into your face and your name.”

Ben practically spluttered. “Grow up?”

“Your entire self-identity seems to be based on not getting any when you were seventeen.” She laughed. “ Maybe you should go see a therapist or something about that, because sooner or later you need to become an adult emotionally, and stop playing the role of an angsty teen.”

“We’ve just met and you’re going to make grand pronouncements about my entire self-identity? How much do you know about me?”

“I live in London, oh great Sherlock Christopher Angel John Harrison Khan. I couldn’t avoid your press if I tried.”

He paused and a slow smile crept across his face. “Something tells me you haven’t tried much, though.”

“What do you mean?” She rubbed at the base of her throat, the skin of her chest feeling like it had shrunk three sizes as she tried to breathe.

He walked over to her and stood a little bit too close to her. “I think you’re a Cumberbitch.”

She had to force herself to look him in the eyes. “It’s Cumber _babe_ , thank you very much. And yes, I  _guess_ you could consider me a fan of your work.”  She felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle in irritation at the smug look on his face. “I don’t have pictures of you on my phone or anything, though,” she added, feeling like she needed to defend herself.

“No poster of me hanging over your bed?” His voice had dropped in volume and timbre, and she could feel it vibrate in her bones.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know. You look all of twenty-two.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wow. You deserve a BAFTA for that performance.”

“How old are you then?”

“Twenty-six.”

He smiled again, but this time there was the faintest edge of amusement to it. “I wasn’t that far off.”

“Your estimate was off by almost twenty percent of my age,” she corrected him.

He paused and she could see him mentally calculating numbers in his head. He finally shrugged. “You’re very good at maths.”

“Yes, I am.”

He leaned back against the other side of the door frame. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

She took a deep breath now that he wasn’t invading her space so much and her lungs felt capable of functioning. “False modesty is just as much a character failure as pride.” She wondered why she felt sad that he had backed away and apparently viewed her as an egotistical prat.

“So if that wasn’t pride or arrogance, what was that, exactly?”

Was he mocking her for being good at maths? “An empirically backed assessment of my skills.” He watched as her eyes narrowed slightly and her jaw took on a more defiant set in the soft lines of her face.

“Oh, good, well if we ever get married, you can balance the accounts,” he teased.

He was! He was mocking her. “And you can read the kids bedtime stories,” she shot back.

She watched the smirk on his face disappear and smiled internally but then cringed as she watched the vibrancy disappear as well. Only then did she remember his well-publicized desire for children and that he had spent the morning taking another man’s wife to a pregnancy checkup. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

He shook his head and pushed himself off of the door frame so he was standing. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone has to have one cross to bear, and since I’m so unbelievably handsome and talented, mine is not having children.” She could tell he was attempting self-deprecating humor, but it came across as raw pain.

Victoria felt like she had kicked a puppy. Impulsively, she stepped forward and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She firmly believed that everyone needed more hugs in their life. She felt Ben’s arms tentatively wrap around her back but then after a second he pulled her tighter. She relaxed into the hug as he rested his head against her shoulder, facing away from neck.

After a minute, he started to speak. “I watched Anna get an ultrasound to check that the baby was okay. All I could think was, ‘I’m never going to see one of these of my own child.’ I was happy that the baby was fine, but I also felt a heart-deep sadness watching her watch her baby move. She was so happy she practically glowed with it. And then when we were leaving the doctor’s office, there was this girl out front, maybe all of sixteen, so pregnant she looked like she was going to burst and she was smoking.”

She could feel the anger in him, the way the muscles in his neck and back tightened as he recounted the story. She stroked his hair with one hand, not knowing what else to do. He stayed like that, just letting himself be held, for several minutes. Finally he stepped back.

“I must sound so maudlin and old to you.” He smiled at her, a passable attempt at acting like he was fine. That is, if she ignored the way his smile got lost on the way to his eyes and never made it.

“No. I know what it’s like to desperately want something and not be able to have it and not be able to do anything about it.”

“You do?” He raised an eyebrow at her skeptically. “But you’re so young.”

She fought the urge to ask him if he could raise his other eyebrow like that. “I was going to be a ballerina.”

He laughed. It would have been a beautiful sound if it wasn’t directed at her.

She gave him a disgusted look and then bent down and worked up the leg of her jeans. “I had been attending the Royal Ballet School full-time for five years. And then this happened.” She stood up and, thankful that her jeans were loose, lifted her leg up and rested her ankle on his shoulder so he could get a good long look at the foot long scar that started above her knee and traced down her calf. “I got hit by a drunk driver. I shattered both bones in my calf and my kneecap and tore all the ligaments and tendons. My career was over before it began.”

It took him a few seconds to tear his eyes away from the scar and look back to her face. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for laughing. I didn’t realize that it was more than just a little girl’s fantasy.” He knew the level of commitment it took to dedicate yourself full-time to a craft, and he could only imagine how devastating it must have been for her to wake up from that surgery knowing all of her dreams were over. She suddenly seemed much more intriguing to him and he wondered how she had faced that kind of a loss and still put forth the air of optimism and caring that emanated from her like sunlight.

“Yes, well.” She put her leg back down and bent over to tug the fabric back into place. “At least I got to dance young Clara. That’s more than a lot of ballerinas get.”

“You are a very surprising woman.”

Her head jerked back a little in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“A mathematical ballerina. It’s an unusual combination.”

She snorted. “Well, accountancy isn’t exactly curtain calls at the Royal Opera House, but it pays the bills.”

“Is that how you’re living your life now? Just paying the bills instead of reaching for a new dream?”

There was something different in the way he was looking at her now, as if the ocean blue of his eyes had been transported from a Dover shoreline to a Caribbean lagoon.

“I still have goals.”

“Like what?” He stepped a little bit closer to her, and she found herself leaning back against the doorframe again.

“That seems like a very personal question,” she murmured, watching as he moved another step closer to her.

“I suddenly feel a desire to know very personal things about you.”

She had to force herself to take a breath as he braced his forearm on the wall above her head. “Like what?” It came out as a whisper. She knew she was staring at his lips, but couldn’t force herself to look away, even though she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.

“Like what you taste like.” His whisper was the sound of waves crashing on the shore, an inevitable force of nature.

At his words her eyes flicked up to his and she could see the question there, waiting for her permission before he kissed her. She nodded, the slightest inclination of her head, and then sighed softly as his lips closed over hers. It was slow and relentless and she could feel herself giving way to the attraction that threatened to pull her under and never let her go. She braced her hands against his chest, looking for something solid to hold on to in the face of the rising tide his lips called forth, but the feel of his heartbeat under her hand just provided a drumbeat to the siren song she was hearing. She had no idea where this ship was going to take her, but she slid her arms around his neck and held on, more than willing to find out. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“What are we doing?” Victoria murmured the words against the smooth column of Ben’s throat.

“I’m pretty sure this is called dancing.” The music quietly played in the background as they swayed together, one hand on the upper curve of her bum, and the other folded with hers over his heart. “You are the expert when it comes to these matters though.”

“You are such a funny boy.” She touched her lips to his throat again, loving the rumbling sound he made when she did, almost as if he were jungle cat purring. She couldn’t get the nagging thought out of her head though. “Really, though, what are we doing? Is this just for fun or is there something more serious going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we’ve been dating for a bit now, and I was just wondering how this works.” She steeled herself and pushed onward, even though she hated these conversations. “I know you’re leaving in a week for a while for your next project, and I guess I don’t know if I’m just something to keep you entertained between projects while you’re here in London or if there was something more,” she hesitated and bit her bottom lip, “permanent to it?”

Ben looked at her in surprise. “You want something more permanent than this?”

“Well, yes. I mean, if you want to as well. If you don’t I understand, I mean I don’t want to stop being—You’re teasing me again aren’t you.”

He grinned, lines forming at the corners of his eyes. “Yes, I’m teasing you again.”

Victoria shook her head before resting her head on his shoulder again. “Someday you’re going to get yourself in trouble doing that.”

“Actually my leaving next week was something I wanted to talk to you about tonight.”

When he didn’t continue, seemingly content to let their dancing carry the conversation for him, she prompted, “What did you want to say?”

“Well, we’ve been dating for a month now, and I care for you. Dating me isn’t easy though. Well, I’m easy. I’m delightful.” He grinned again.

“Delightful indeed.” She trailed a fingertip across his bottom lip and he shivered.

He gave her a look that she had gotten to know very well in the last month, the one that made her knees weak as it both showed how much she affected him with her teasing caresses and how much he was going to return those touching in kind. “Yes, as I was saying,” he cleared his throat in an attempt to collect this thoughts, “with as busy as I am relationships are hard to keep going, and I want to be very clear about that up front. I’m gone for weeks at a time, sometimes I work eighteen hour days for days on end. I’ve gotten the impression that you care for me, and I want to warn you that I’m not good boyfriend material.”

“You’re warning me off of you?”

“Yes. I care enough for you to want you not to suffer because of me.”

She stepped back, breaking the hold he had on her physically as a precursor to attempting to sever the emotional bond they had built up over the last month. “This is the weirdest ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech I’ve ever heard.”

He took her hand in his, interlacing their fingers together and stroking his thumb across the back of her hand. “I’m not trying to breakup with you. This last month has been wonderful, but it’s also been an aberration in my schedule. It’s been abnormally normal, and I don’t want to lure you in on false pretenses.”

“I’ll take you in bits and pieces if that’s the only way I get to have you. If you feel the same way, that is.” She forced herself to keep looking at him, into the ocean depths of his eyes. Him rejecting her couldn’t possibly hurt more than breaking in a new pair of pointe shoes, could it?

He stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands. “I definitely feel the same way.” His voice was dark and comforting. He lowered his face to hers, not letting go of her eyes as he brushed his lips against hers. Their noses brushed against each other as she leant into the kiss, needing something more than this ephemeral touch. His lips simultaneously anchored her and set her adrift on the emotional currents his kisses always evoked. Hopes and dreams cascaded around her, coalescing into one evanescent moment of serenity. Eventually he pulled back and brushed a fingertip across her still closed lashes, collecting the tear drop hanging there.

“Why are you crying, my dear Victoria?”

“I’m not. That’s just my heart exhaling after holding its breath for the last month.”


	3. The Breakup

Anna watched sleepily as Victoria cuddled baby Wills. She was always sleepy now, though with a three day old baby she assumed that was normal.

“He’s so beautiful,” Victoria cooed at the little boy sleeping in her arms. She looked up at Anna who was yawning. “You make beautiful babies.”

“He takes after his father.”

Tom handed her a few capsules and a glass of water. “And I think he looks like his mother.”

“According to evolutionary biology,” Anna started but Victoria cut her off.

“Hush you with your science, woman, just look at his adorable little face. And his fingers. How are they so tiny yet perfect all at the same time?”

Ben chuckled. “I think science explains that. Now, quit hogging the baby.”

Victoria kissed Wills on his forehead and reluctantly handed him over to Benedict who relaxed back into the sofa with the sleeping baby tucked in one arm, and his other arm stretched across the back of the sofa, his fingers brushing against Victoria’s shoulder.

Anna tried to fight back a grin at the perfect picture of domesticity they made. Ben looked like a complete natural with a baby in his arms, and Victoria kept looking back and forth from the baby to Ben’s face and back to the baby again.

Tom wasn’t so successful at keeping quiet. “You three make a charming sight together.”

Victoria laughed and Ben shot Tom a warning look. Tom held up his hands in a profession of innocence. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying.”

“Have you had the baby talk yet?” Anna asked, her curiosity and sleep deprivation overwhelming her sense of manners.

“Can we really not have this conversation right now?”  Ben asked.

“Fine, you boys go in the other room. Victoria and I will have girl talk.”

Neither of the men moved. “I’m serious. Go stand in the kitchen or something.”

“Fine, but I’m taking William with me.” Ben levered himself to a stand. Tom kissed Anna on the top of her head and followed after Ben.

Anna waited until they were in the other room and said, “How serious is this getting between you two?”

“I don’t know. He’s been gone a lot filming lately. We’re very happy when we’re together, but we’re not together a lot.”

Anna nodded. “We had that problem when Tom really hit it big. It was hard on us, and we had been together for a long time before that, so we had that connection to keep us going.”

“I mean, I love him. I haven’t told him that yet, but I do love him. I just don’t know if it is enough.”

Anna moved over to the sofa so she could sit next to Vicki. “I guess this is the point where you two have to have that talk. If you let it go on any longer, both of you could just get hurt even more.”

Vicki flopped back against the sofa in an overly dramatic fashion, whining like a teenager, “I hate those talks, though.” Anna grinned at her and Vic smiled back. “Seriously though, they are always so awkward, even if they have good outcomes.”

“I know, love,” Anna slouched back against the sofa as well and turned her head to look at Vic. It was almost like a sleepover. “But I think the sooner the better. Unless you’re willing to be happy with what he can give you now, then you need to have that talk, because it’s not going to get easier. You both want babies,” Vicki looked at her with surprise, “don’t give me that look, you were practically ovulating just looking at Wills. If that’s something he wants, something in his life is going to have to change if he wants to actually be a dad and not just a father. And you’re going to have to decide if you can be mom  _and_ dad when he’s gone for weeks at a time.”

“How are you and Tom handling it?”

“We don’t know yet. That’s part of what maternity leave is for, to figure it out. But I can tell you that only after three days, I know that what we were doing before isn’t going to be enough.”

Vicki blinked back a few tears. “I don’t want to lose him.” She looked at Anna pleadingly, as if she were a fairy godmother who could bibbity bobbity boo away her woes.

“I know, honey.” She patted Vicki on the knee. “Ben is amazing. You just have to decide for yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice to keep him in your life.”

***

“You’re very quiet.” Benedict looked over at Victoria as he was driving her home. “What’s going on in your head?”

“Why do you think babies smell so good?”

He chuckled and stroked his thigh as he thought for a moment. “I have no idea. Anna would probably tell you it was so that you wanted to hold your baby and cuddle it which would increase bonding and increase the chance of the child’s survival.”

Vicki laughed. “So you’re saying natural selection got rid of the stinky babies.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

She watched his nose wrinkle as he laughed so big he got crinkles around his eyes. “You’re such a dork.”

“But you love me for it.” He winked at her.

Her jaw dropped. “You were eavesdropping on me and Anna?”

“What?” Ben looked at her in confusion.

“Oh.”

It took a second for the words to sink in. “Wait, you told Anna that you love me?”

Victoria didn’t say anything. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Of all the ways she had imagined telling him that she loved him, this scenario had never crossed her mind.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It just never seemed the right time.”

He parked his Jaguar in front of her building and turned off the engine.

“We’re together almost every day. Unless these feelings are as new as baby Wills, it seems like you would have found the time to tell me.” He folded his fingers around hers, finding her oddly reticent to hold his hand.

“Why does it matter? It’s not like you have professed your love for me, Ben.”

“Is that what it is? You’re waiting for me to dance lead?” He inwardly congratulated himself on the dance reference.

“No, but I’m waiting for some sort of sign that you feel the same way before I go ahead and make one more connection to you that’s going to be painful when it breaks.”

“When it breaks?” He pulled his hand back. “Don’t you mean if?”

“I don’t know! You warned me. You really did and I thought I would be fine with having you part of the time, but that’s not the way I love. I can’t do this. We’ve been together four months and half of that time you’ve been on another continent. And I want babies, Ben.” She finally looked at him, and all he could see was her heart breaking. “Not just one, but lots of babies, and I want a family and I don’t want to be a single parent, and I think that’s what I would be with you. Even married, I’d end up parenting by myself for weeks at a time while you’re working. And I know you’re famous for saying you want a family and kids, but I have no idea how you plan on making that happen with the schedule you keep.”

“So, what, you expect me to quit projects I’ve signed on to because we’ve been dating a few months?” He couldn’t believe she was asking so much of him so soon.

“No! But I’m realizing that it’s not enough for me to be in love with you. I want to have a life with you, and I don’t think I can. Not the kind of life I want.”

He had told her this was how his life was. Why was she surprised when it actually was the way he had described it. Did she think he was lying to her? “I’m sorry you feel that way.” His voice was as stiff as if it had been starched.

“Yeah. I am too.” She closed the car door quietly behind her and made it into her building before she started to cry.


	4. The Calendar

Victoria arrived home three days later intent on nothing but opening the bottle of red wine she had sitting on her counter and maybe opening the bar of dark chocolate she had in her nightstand. Her plans were brought to an abrupt halt when she got out of the lift and saw Ben sitting on the hallway floor with his head leaning back against her door.

She came to a halt in front of him, her polished heels standing in contrast against his well-worn Chucks. “What are you doing here?”

His curls fell over his forehead as he looked up at her. “I have something to show you. Can I come in?”

She repeated the words, ‘clean break’ over and over in her head, but when she opened her mouth she said, “Of course.”

He climbed to his feet, picking up what looked like a roll of gift-wrapping paper, and followed her into her flat. Victoria went for the bottle of red. Regardless of what happened, she felt like having wine was going to be an important step in helping her cope. By the time she had opened the bottle and poured two glasses, Ben had unrolled the paper and had it spread out on her table, anchoring corners with the salt and pepper, the bear-shaped container of honey, and her dirty coffee cup from that morning.

She handed him a glass and he deliberately let his fingers stroke hers as he took it from her. She closed her eyes at the familiar touch and the memories it conjured, memories she had spent the last three days shoving in the closet and padlocking shut. “So, what are we looking at?”

“This is my schedule.”

Victoria looked at the large calendar rolled out on the table. It looked like he had freehanded it with a bunch of Sharpies.

“I’ve color-coded it by project and where I’ll be.” The patchwork of colors started to slowly morph into an intelligible pattern. “So for example, next week,” a long finger stabbed at a section colored purple, “I’m in Cardiff for the next episode of  _Sherlock._ That means I can come back to London at the weekend. Or, you could take a long weekend and come down and watch the filming, and we could spend a few days together.”

She looked at the six week patch colored purple. “And you would be in the same time zone even if you were in a different city.”

He looked over at her to see her eyes roaming over the calendar, looking for more patches of purple. “Yes, we would be in the same time zone. Just a few hours by train.”

“What’s this big yellow project?” She tapped a section nine months out that stretched for four months.

“That’s still in negotiations, but I’m going back on the stage.”

“Oh. Where?” She held her breath, praying to the gods for the answer she wanted.

He tipped her face towards him. “The National Theater.”

She shakily exhaled. “Here in London.”

“Here in London.” He watched her intently as she absorbed the ramifications of the news, and saw hope flicker into life in her eyes.

She smiled politely, not wanting to read more into that statement than might be there. “That’s a wonderful opportunity for you. You must be excited to get back on the stage after so long.”

“I am.” A smile spread across his face. He couldn’t wait any longer to relieve her mind. “I’m even more excited about the possibility of coming home to you every night.”

“Ho…home?” The hope bloomed from a flicker into a blaze.

He set his wine glass down, blocking out the two weeks he had colored in for him and Victoria to go to Greece. Victoria set her glass down next to his. “We’ve been together four months, and they have been wonderful. I love you, Victoria.” He rested his hands on her waist, his large fingers almost spanning her back.

“You do?” Her hands stole shyly around his neck.

“Yes. You notice how I told you that I loved you and not Tom?”

Her lips squeezed together in a rosebud of embarrassment though she loved that the teasing smile she had missed was back. He bent to kiss her softly. “I’m booked out eighteen months in advance, but there’s big chunks of time where I’ll be here, and we can make the rest of it work, if you’re willing to tell me what’s going on in your head, instead of telling Anna.”

“I love you, Benedict.”

“I figured that out when you started crying.” She smiled as she tried to keep from blushing, shamefaced at how she had acted. “I warned you that I’m really bad boyfriend material, but give me the time to start scheduling around you, around  _us_ , and I think I might make a decent husband someday.”

It took Victoria a few moments to respond, her head spinning like she had just done the thirty-two  _fouettés en tournant_ from  _Swan Lake_. “I think so, too.”

“Promise me you’ll always tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I promise.”

“There’s going to be days or weeks where I’m so busy I won’t pick up on clues and hints. You’ll just have to wallop me with it, okay?”

She nodded.

“And promise me that you’ll think about moving in with me while I’m in Cardiff. I know I sort of sprung that on you out of nowhere.”

She shook her head. “I don’t need to think about it.”

“No?”

She stepped closer into him, their stomachs pressing together. “I would love to live with you.”

He kissed her again. “Too much time apart to waste any time we could be together.”

“Exactly.”

 “Are we okay?” Ben asked, gently stroking her cheek.

Victoria nestled her face against his hand. “Yes.”

“Good.” He stooped and picked her up around her knees and tossed her over his shoulder. “Because I have missed you and I feel like making up for lost time.” He carried her to her bedroom, her squealing giggles blending with his deep rumbling laughter, and kicked the door shut behind them. The wine had plenty of time to breathe before they finally got back to it. 


	5. The Trailer

Ben pulled her tee up over her head and tossed it aside as his mouth quickly found her neck again. Victoria’s fingers fumbled with his belt, her fingers clumsy with the thrill of potentially being caught. She could hear crew members on the other side of the thin trailer walls and Ben wasn’t exactly the quietest of lovers. As much as she loved hearing him whisper and murmur and worship and command in the confines of their bedroom, her favorite thing was the sounds he made as he came, the cries, the grunts, the way he turned her name into the holiest and most carnal word in the universe.

She finally got the belt undone and reached for the button on his trousers. She tugged at it as Ben’s hands found the clasp on her bra. They both undid the barriers to their goals in perfect synchronization, and he pulled the strap down her arm and left her bra dangling around her other wrist as she reached into his trousers and wrapped her hand around his hardening cock.

“Ahhh,” he breathed against her breast as he felt her cool fingers come in contact with his heated flesh. She echoed the sound back to him as he closed his lips over her nipple and sucked it into his mouth. She tugged at his trousers, trying to pull them down one handed as she squeezed his cock with her other hand. His hand closed over her other breast, covering it completely, squeezing it in his palm. She gave up at her one-handed attempts at freeing him and released him long enough to yank his trousers down, her thumbs hooked through his pants and yanking them down around his knees.

She dropped to her knees on the tiny floor of the trailer and with one movement took his cock into her mouth. “Vic,” he groaned as his hands closed around her head, threading his fingers into her blonde waves. She swirled her tongue around the head, tasting that droplet of salt that was as delectable to her as the finest wine. She could feel him hardening in her mouth and she hummed against his flesh. As much as she loved him taking control of her and the sight of him looming over her in bed, the way his muscles flexed, the veins over his shoulders and in his arms highlighted in the low light of one lamp on in their room, the breadth of his neck as he threw his head back to voice a groan that any Neanderthal would have understood, there was something about the power she felt with him in her mouth that was intoxicating.

She could feel the pulse of his heart as she slowly sucked him to hardness. She tongued along the length of him, kissing the length of his shaft, tonguing his testicles, first one, and then the other, and then back up, long slow wet kisses that left his thighs shaking in anticipation. “Vic, darling, we don’t have much time,” he groaned as she teased the head of his cock with her tongue.

She smiled up at him as she sucked his cock back into her mouth, first the head, and then slowly, one slick up and down motion of her head at a time, she took him deep into her mouth, and then, in a move inspired by one too many glasses of wine and one too many evenings alone in their bed with a laptop to keep her company, and with the nice people at Google, she tilted her head back a little bit and slipped her tongue out a little past her bottom teeth and took him a little bit deeper. She could feel the urge to gag hit her but she stopped, and when it passed, she did it again, out and then back a little deeper, and again.

“Fuck, Vic,” Ben whispered, staring down at her with eyes open wide in amazement. She had never been able to get him in all the way in and he had never minded because her hands had always been more than accommodating at helping out, but he watched as with one more movement, one last tug of her tongue as she pulled it back into her mouth and his cock with it, and he felt the head of his cock press into her throat.

Victoria closed her eyes in relief as it worked. She’d had a few glasses of wine on the train on the way over to Cumbria where she was joining Ben this morning on location in anticipation of giving him a treat he wouldn’t be expecting. She had never felt the desire to overcome her gag reflex before, but she wanted Ben, no, she  _loved_  Ben more than she had thought it was possible to love another person. Having grown up wanting to dance the most powerful love stories every written, she had mastered the physical motions of love, the lingering hands and the glances, and the way the bodies inclined towards each other of their own volition, as if drawn by magnets or invisible red strings or fate. This, however, was the language of the heart. She wanted to give him all of her, bring him pleasure in any way possible.

She began to slowly move again, now that the thrill of actually getting it to work was ebbing, and she felt Ben’s hands scrabbling for purchase in her hair. He chanted her name over and over as she let her tongue rub over his sweet spot with every in and out and she could feel him throbbing, hardening even more as she took him over and over deeper into her than he had ever been before. She could feel her wetness soaking her panties. She had had no idea that being able to do this would turn her on so much, but as her fingernails scored marks into his arse and down the back of his thighs, she felt the scalding liquid heat spill over from the lagoon at her core and flood through her body.

A knock at the door and a call of “Five minutes!” made her pause and look up at him. His head was thrown back and she could see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed slowly. She had a fetish for that neck. She could barely make herself go back and watch the first few series of Sherlock before he had bulked up for Khan. That job had changed his physique forever, and while he had been beautiful before, he was pure perfection now.

He slowly pulled her off of his cock and with a few movements had her flat on her back on the small bed. He hitched up her knees, reached under her skirt, pulled her knickers to the side and buried himself in her. That first frantic push drove her another six inches up the mattress and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her calves rubbing against the wool of his long Sherlock coat. He was desperate and frantic and she could feel his teeth digging into her shoulder as he tried to stifle the crazed grunts as he thrust into her over and over again.  She slipped her hand between their bodies and started rubbing her clit, the wet silk of her knickers adding another layer of friction as her fingers circled the hard little nub. She buried her face against his chest, his coat falling around her face so the dark warmth was filled with the scent of their bodies and his subtle cologne. She kept her hand out of his hair with an iron-lined will, and clung to him as he fucked her with an intensity that set her nerves afire and made her hips thrust up against him, trying to take him deeper, wanting to give everything she had to him, let him find everything he was searching for in her.

“Fuck, Vic,” the shattered words escaped as she felt him throb, those final few moments before he would come.

“Yes, love, come in me,” she whispered against his ear. She pressed a little harder, rubbed a little faster, and the burning hot spill of him inside her, the muffled scream of her name against her throat, the sound of his voice vibrating through her sent her over the edge. She cried his name against his chest as she convulsed, clenching around him, her legs locked around his waist as she held him deep within her.

They rocked together, slowing gradually as the crashing waves of pleasure faded into little ripples. They finally untangled themselves and Ben grabbed a towel and cleaned himself off before hurriedly getting his costume set to rights. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead as she laid there, half on the bed and half off. “Take a nap if you want. We’re shooting the rest of the afternoon so you’ll have plenty of time to come watch later.”

She sleepily smiled and when he winked at her on the way out the door she blew him a kiss in response. The door shut behind him and she could feel him bound down the steps. She took a deep breath and grinned at the ceiling of the trailer.

She heard Martin’s familiar voice from outside. “Well, that was a perfect display of ‘if the trailer’s a rockin.’”

“Shut up.”

“Your fly’s down, mate…Made you look.”

Even the sound of Ben’s hand hitting Martin’s head didn’t stop Martin’s gleeful laughter.


	6. The Anniversary

Ben and Victoria quietly tiptoed out of Wills’ bedroom and shut the door behind them. They paused for a few seconds as the door clicked and then smiled as they let out their breaths. Victoria let out a quiet laugh. “I think it worked this time.”

Ben nodded. “Who knew it could be so difficult to convince an eight month old to go to sleep.” They linked hands as they walked down the stairs. “It was nice of you to suggest we watch Wills so they could have a night out and alone before Tom leaves for six weeks.”

“I know how much I hate sending you off and I don’t even have a baby to worry about. I thought they might like a little extra time alone.”

He stopped her in the doorway to the kitchen and pressed her up against the doorframe where he had first kissed her. “You are the most loving thoughtful woman I have ever met.” He bent to kiss her and even after a year the touch of his lips still scorched the air in her lungs, making it difficult to breath. She parted her lips and stole his breath as she wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands slid down her sides and rested on her hips. “Do you know how much I love you?” he whispered, his voice resonant even when soft and gentle.

His words sparkled like gemstones in her mind, and even though she had treasure rooms filled to overflowing with them by now, each new one was as precious as the first. “Almost as much as I love you.”

He kissed her once more before pulling away. “Do you know what today is?” he asked as poured them glasses of wine, his hands uncharacteristically shaking as he fumbled out the loose cork.

“I do believe that a year ago today, you opened that door over there,” she pointed at the front door, “and I embarrassed myself half to death.”

Ben chuckled at the memory of her turning bright red after accidentally swearing at him. He placed a glass of wine in her hand and then tugged her into the living room. “And then a couple hours later we both got embarrassed as Anna found us on this sofa.”

She sat down on the overstuffed sofa and sank into the pillows.  Her skin prickled in sudden nervousness as he didn’t join her but stood over her. She wanted to say he was looming over her, but that was too ominous sounding. His eyes slowly moved down her body and back up and the word popped into her head. He was memorizing her, every strand of her hair, the wrinkles in her skirt, and the way she fiddled with her bracelet. The silence stretched until she had to break it. “Is that why you scheduled our babysitting for tonight? So we can recreate our first meeting?”

He sat down facing her, one leg twisted under the other. “It was a good meeting.”

The way he said good sent shivers down her spine. He had bottled up all the sexual energy they had created that day and then released it a single syllable. “It was. I never thought I could enjoy kissing someone that much.”

“I had never felt someone’s kisses go straight to my heart like that.” He brushed his thumb against her mouth and she shivered at the drag of skin on skin. “But what I remember most wasn’t the kissing or even what we got up to on the sofa, as delightful as that was.”

His wicked chuckle tinted her cheeks. “What do you remember?”

“The hug.”

Victoria was caught off guard by his simple answer. “Really?”

He nodded, rubbing his thigh as he thought back to that moment. “I’d had a horrible day and you barely knew me but you wanted to make it better. It was my first experience with how compassionate you are.”

She brushed her hand against his and their fingers intertwined. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

“That hug has been constantly on my mind recently. I keep thinking about how at home I feel in your arms and about how much I love being held by you and your quasi-magical ability to sort all my problems with a hug and a kiss. I can’t imagine my future without you in it, without knowing that you’ll always be there for me the way I want to always be there for you.”

He slipped off the sofa and knelt in front of her and all the blood drained from Victoria’s face. “I know that your friend’s living room probably isn’t what you would think of as the most romantic of places, but this is where we started, and this is where I want to ask you to promise me we’ll never end. Will you marry me, Victoria?”

She had put down her glass of wine when he had knelt on the floor so if what happened was what she thought was going to happen she wouldn’t spill it all over the carpet. She was glad for that foresight now because her hands were shaking. She couldn’t figure out how to make her mouth work. Her brain had ceased to function, paralyzed by the sight of that gorgeous man on one knee looking at her with the hope of a million tomorrows shining in his eyes. He was biting his bottom lip in anticipation, a grin breaking across his face as he watched her chin quivering. He waited patiently, more and more smile lines appearing around his eyes as her mouth soundlessly worked.

Victoria finally gave up on her mouth and nodded repeatedly, her own smiled matching Ben’s for radiance.

“Yes?” he asked, his nose wrinkling as he tried not to laugh.

“Yes,” she finally managed to say. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Anna and Tom came home a few hours later. He groaned when he heard the sounds coming from the living room. “Really, you two. If I wanted to come home to this I would have gotten a teenager to watch Wills.”

He was answered by Ben’s chuckle and an insouciant giggle from Victoria. She held her arm up so her hand was visible over the back of the sofa. Anna saw something flash in the dim lighting and squealed. She ran in, grabbed Victoria’s hand, squealed again and looked over the back to congratulate her friends.

She immediately scrunched her eyes shut. “Congratulations you two. We’ll just go upstairs and you can let yourselves out when you’re done.”


	7. The Wedding

Benedict gazes at his wife.  _His wife!_  After a year of planning and finding a long enough break in his schedule for a relaxed wedding and a relaxing honeymoon, they are finally married. She looks radiant in her white gown and every time their eyes meet, he has to fight the tears that threaten to fall.

He had almost given up on finding love when he had met her, and now, here they were with the most storybook wedding imaginable. The old country church and now a tented garden lunch at her parents’ home. There are flowers everywhere, and she has arranged for an entire buffet of puddings to accompany the cake in a nod to his insatiable sweet tooth.

He walks up behind her as she chats with friends he doesn’t know. He slips his arms around her waist, pressing against the full skirt and feeling the fabric surround his legs. She rests a hand on his, her finger rubbing idly over the ring she had placed on his finger a few hours earlier. He listens to them chat, perfectly content to simply hold his wife.

“Dance with me,” he whispers in her ear.

She turns her head, kisses him on the cheek. “You know I don’t dance in public anymore.”

“I’m not asking you to perform. Dance with me. Dance with your husband.” She meets his eyes, sees the hope and the love there, drinks it in as tonic against the nervousness and regret and the slight tang of bitterness that still permeates her every time she thinks of dancing where someone can see her. She had not danced at all since the accident until Ben coaxed her into his arms and hummed in her ear and set them both into a gentle sway. It had happened so naturally that she hadn’t even realized what had happened until he dipped her. She had stumbled with the unexpected movement and then started to cry as she felt the twinge in her knee that marked the end of her dreams. They had been together a scant two weeks at that point and he sat on the floor of her lounge with her in his lap as she cried out her anger at the hand Fate had dealt her.

And Ben dealt her a new hand.

They danced together every night they were together, sometimes for just a few minutes, sometimes for an hour. It was where they talked about their day, their pasts, their hopes for the future. It wasn’t elaborate; there was no choreography and she didn’t try to pirouette. He brought back into her life the sheer joy of moving to music, though, and that was enough. She always refused to dance anywhere besides in the privacy of their home. He had given her this part of her life back, and she shared it only with him, trusting in his enjoyment of the current moment and not to indulge in ‘what might have been.’

And here he was asking her to dance. To dance in front of her parents who had gone to every recital since she was three. The friends and family who had thrown her a party when she was accepted to the Royal Ballet School. In front of the people who had read the reviews of her as a promising new talent when she danced Young Clara and predicted a prima ballerina in the making. In front of the people who had watched her come home in a cast and on crutches.

“It’s not for them,” he murmurs. “Just dance with me.”

He takes her hand, and they walk together to a small patch of the garden out of the way of the chattering guests. He pulls her into his arms just as the jazz quartet shifts to “At Last,” the muted trumpet substituting for the irreplaceable Etta James. He sings to her as they dance and his tears cause his galactic eyes to shine with such brightness that her own eyes water in response.

His words brush against her cheek and she can feel his heart beating under her palm. The diamond on her finger sparkles in the sunlight and tiny rainbows dance across his hair where the refracted light hits it. She smiles at him as he sings, just soft enough for her to hear. The happiness she feels welling in her heart spills through her, leaving her entire body to tingle in its wake. It’s better than a standing ovation.

“Do you know what I feel like doing?” she asks.

He raises an eyebrow in response as he continues to sing.

“I feel like twirling. Will you twirl me?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat and a drop spills from the water that had been pooling in his eyes. He nods and spins her out and she twirls, the full skirt of her gown whipping against his legs. It is not a pirouette, not in these heels, not on grass, not without practice, but as she spins, once, twice, and then a final time before she comes back into his arms, she is smiling as the world blurs around her except for the joy on her husband’s face, on her fixed point.

She is breathless as she puts her hand back on his shoulder and feels like she could float, like Sleeping Beauty dancing in the clouds as the fairies turn her dress from blue to pink and back again. She has been asleep too long and beside the happiness of a future with her beloved, she has woken to the joy that dance can still bring her, even if it’s never on a stage.

“I want to dip you.”

She nods and as the song’s last notes pour out into the June air, he dips her, smiles as the feel of her leg pressed against his as she leans back, and then, after a pause to memorize the look on her face, pulls her back up and kisses. Neither one are expecting the applause, not having noticed that their little interlude has drawn the attention of all of the guests. Victoria turns around and sees the tears on her parents’ cheeks, and her first standing ovation in years. She looks back at Ben who whispers, “Take a bow.” She doesn’t do a full révérence, she doesn’t feel that she has earned it, but her classical training shows in the way she holds her arm, the bow of the head, her hand over her heart.

She kisses Ben, tears on both of their faces, and is quickly enveloped in her father’s arms who claims her for a dance. The garden is soon full of people dancing and Tom and Ben have a dance-off that leaves everyone crying with laughter. Ben and Victoria find their way into each others’ arms periodically, and that night, they keep their tradition alive as they dance together one more time and talk about their day. As the conversation turns more into kisses than words, Victoria has one final thing to say.

“I’m pregnant.” 


	8. The Suitcase

Victoria sighed at the sight of Ben’s suitcase sitting half unpacked on the bed. She had thought him coming home from his latest project would be wonderful, but instead of the impulsive, loving, dare-she-say lusty man she had married – was it really just three months ago? – and had expected to walk in the door, she had been greeted with a hug and a chaste kiss and then he had turned his attention to her belly. His hands had been all over her stomach, talking to the babies, and telling them Daddy was home. The rest of the day as he faffed about settling back in to being at home, he stroked it every time he walked by. He didn’t touch the rest of her like that. A few pecks on the cheek, and once or twice his hand had strayed up from her stomach to brush against the bottom of her breasts but it had always stopped before he got anywhere exciting.

 She slumped down on the bed next to the suit case and started sorting out the rest of his belongings, knowing that if she left it to him that he wouldn’t finish unpacking until he needed the suitcase for another trip. The clothes she threw towards the hamper, the shoes got tossed towards the closet, and then at the bottom was a gift bag. Her previous irritation at him disappeared and she listened for a moment to see if he was anywhere close before she took out the bag and carefully peeked inside. She never could wait to open presents and always rattled the gifts under the Christmas tree when she thought no one was looking. Inside the bag were two rubber giraffes, just the right size for a baby to teethe on. She put the bag back in the suitcase, zipped it up, and carried it down to the storage closet where it lived when not needed.

She poked her head into the living room to find him stretched out on the sofa, feet propped up on one arm, clad in a pair of his ridiculous socks that he so cherished, and his head all the way at the other end, buried in a book. She huffed quietly. Apparently that book that had been so unimportant that he hadn’t even taken it with him was more interesting than her now. That was it. If he wasn’t interested in having her around, then she would just go do something else. She’d taken the day off of work to be here when he got home, but apparently she had overestimated his interest in having her around. Blinking back tears, she went and fetched her purse and shoes. With her hand on the front door, she called back into the house, “I’m going out.”

“Where are you going?” he called back.

“Just…out.” She opened the door before she heard the sofa groan in protest as he clambered off of it. They really should get a new sofa. That one was on its last legs but Ben adored it because it was long enough for him to stretch out on comfortably.

He came sliding around the corner as he hurried into the entry. “Is everything alright, love?”

She set her jaw into a polite smile before she turned around to answer him. “I’m fine.”

His large hand covered hers on the door knob and he slowly shut the door. His fingers interlocked with hers and his other hand spread across the small of her back and pulled her closer so their stomachs were touching. He smiled, the crinkles that on a better day she adored appearing around his eyes as he looked at her. “What’s going on, Vic?”

“Nothing.”

He chuckled at her sullen recalcitrance. “Nothing? I’m finally home after two months away and you’re going ‘out’ rather than be with me?”

She stared at the floor, one foot rubbing against the other before she made herself stop fidgeting and took up fourth position.  “If the belly was detachable, I’d take it off and leave it with you since that seems to be the only part of me that matters anymore.”

His hand dropped from her back and he leaned against the entrance table so their eyes were on a level. He folded his arms across his chest. “Would you like to repeat that to my face, Mrs. Cumberbatch?”

She looked up, forcing herself not to get distracted by the way the veins stood out on his forearms. “What? That my belly’s the only part of me that matters anymore?”

His head tilted to the side as he digested her words. After a few seconds he asked, “Where did you get an idea like that?”

“I don’t know? Maybe because it’s the only part of me that you’ve paid attention to me since you got home? You touch my belly. You talk to my belly. You don’t touch me. You’ve barely kissed me since you got home. I bought fancy new underwear to welcome you home but you wouldn’t know that, would you, because apparently I’m no longer sexually interesting. I’m wearing your favorite perfume, the one that always makes you nuzzle my neck and whisper naughty things in my ear, but you didn’t even notice.”

“I noticed.” He advanced on her with a smile. Victoria stepped back, unsure of what he was going to do, but quickly found the closet door up against her back. He put his hands on either side of her head and leaned in so close she felt like she was drowning in his oceanic eyes. “I noticed that sweet scent of Indian gardenia the moment I kissed you hello, and every time I come close to you, I want to linger and kiss every inch of your skin, take your hair down and wrap it around my hands and pull your head back so I can feel your pulse against my lips.”

Victoria swallowed and then licked her lips. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves but all that did was fill her with the heady mix of his cologne and the scent of his skin. “Then why didn’t you?” she asked quietly.

He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Because you’re pregnant with twins and I don’t want to put any more demands on your body.”

Victoria pushed him until he was backed up against the hall table again. “Kiss me. Kiss me like we’ve been apart for two months. I want you to put demands on my body, Ben. I want you to not be able to keep your hands off of me. I want you to fuck me until I –

Ben didn’t wait to hear anymore.  He grabbed her face and kissed her. He didn’t have to coax open her mouth; it was already parted for him and he claimed her bottom lip with his lips and then his teeth. His mouth was relentless, kissing his wife until she had molded herself to him, clinging to him for support.

Victoria tightened her arms around her husband as his kisses set off fireworks in her stomach. She hadn’t forgotten how wonderful it was to kiss him; that was one of the reasons she had so looked forward to him coming home. She  _had_  forgotten the frequent dizzy spells she had been getting now that she was pregnant. Victoria had gotten in the habit of not standing up too quickly, but she’d forgotten that other things besides elevation could send all the blood rushing from her head.

“Ben,” she whispered as her fingers clutched at his shoulders.

He nudged back her jaw and nuzzled into her neck. “God, Vic, I love the feel of your skin.” He suckled the soft skin as one hand dug into her hair, searching for the clips she was using to hold it back.

“Ben,” she tried again as she patted his shoulder, “I need…”

“Oh god, I need you too, gorgeous.” He pulled out one of the clips and wound her hair around his hand and tugged her head back so he could feel her pulse racing under his lips. Her chin tilted up and she began to collapse in his arms, folding up like a dropped slinky. He grabbed her around the waist, frantically unfurling her hair from his hand so he could wrap another arm around her.

“Sit…I need to sit…” she whispered.

He sank to the ground and pulled her into his lap. “Are you alright? Should I call the midwife?” Her face was pale as her head lolled against his shoulder.  The burning need he had been feeling shriveled and froze and sent out icy tentacles towards his heart. “Vic, please love, what’s wrong?”

“I just need to sit.”

He looked around for where he’d left his mobile. “Should I call someone?”

Victoria put her fingers against his mouth. “I just need a minute. I got a little lightheaded.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Are you saying that you passed out from me kissing you?”

She took a deep breath, starting to feel more normal as her heart didn’t have to pump so hard to get the blood back to her brain. “I didn’t pass out.”

“Almost.”

She patted him on the arm. “I’ve got a lot more blood now because of these two little apples and it all rushed out of my head.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I knew I should have kept my hands to myself.”

Victoria was not going to stand for that. “I swear to all that I hold holy, if you don’t fuck me senseless in the next thirty minutes, I will pee in your fireplace and flick you in the face. Repeatedly.”

Ben met her glare, his forehead furrowing. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine! Just probably no sex up against the wall for the next several months.”

Ben scrutinized her face. Her normal color was back and she was no longer limp against him. Satisfied that she was recovered from her spell, the humor of the situation took over and he grinned.  “You almost passed out from the power of my kisses.”

Victoria laughed at his schoolboy glee. “Yes, you insufferable prat. I almost passed out from kissing you.”

She could swear his jaw just became more chiseled and angular. “I don’t know my own strength.”

“Well, you’re going to need it all of it to get your pregnant wife off of the floor. I can probably stand now.”

“No.” Ben’s fingers brushed over the front of her shirt, down over her stomach and started tugging at the hem. “I want to see the special sexy underwear you bought.”

Victoria laughed and raised her arms. She wasn’t the only one who got impatient about opening presents. He tossed her shirt to the side and his hands cupped her breasts, squeezing them through the delicate turquoise lace. “You are so fucking gorgeous, Vic. All those nights Skyping with you do not do justice to the beauty of you in person.” He kissed her again, long slow kisses that left her moaning against his lush mouth before his hands slid up and over her shoulders and then down her back where he easily unhooked her bra. She helped him slide it off and his hands were back on her breasts, kneading them like a cat getting ready to take a nap. “Your skin is like rose petals, and your fragrance is intoxicating, and your body,” his voice trailed off and he closed his eyes, “your body is perfection.”

He lowered her onto her back, there on the floor in the entry way, and bent to her throat again, starting over where he had been kissing before and then slowly working his way downward. He sucked in a mouthful of her breast before settling on the nipple. Victoria pulled at his shirt and he sat up long enough to discard it before he bent and sucked her other nipple into his mouth. She ran her hands over his back, feeling the muscles shift as he moved over her. He’d had to bulk up for this latest role and that would have been enough to drive her hormones into overdrive even without being pregnant. She was fairly certain she could make herself come at this point just by giving him a massage.

It only took a minute of her raging hormones before she was yanking at the button on his jean and swearing at the uncooperative zip. “Damnit, go down!” she hissed.

“If you insist, though you could say please.” Ben grabbed the waist of her leggings and pulled them down and she lifted her hips to help.

“I was talking to the zipper on your jeans, you goof.”

He winked at her as he tugged her knickers down, uninterested in sexy special lingerie when what he really wanted was underneath it.  “I know, but how can I refuse a request like that, love?” He smiled up at her as he spread her legs and hooked them over his shoulders. “Especially when I’ve been dreaming about this every night for weeks.”

His tongue made contact with her pussy and she grabbed a fistful of his hair. She hoped this movie got a sequel because him all muscled and with his natural curls did  _not_  happen often enough in her opinion. He made a growling sound deep in his throat as his tongue plunged deep inside her. “Oh god,” she muttered as she pressed her hips upward. Anna had not been kidding about the wonders of second trimester sex. Not at all.

Victoria ground her hips in a circle and Ben sucked her clit into his mouth, letting his tongue run over it. He continued to suck and lick in tandem and she grabbed another handful of his hair. Her heels dug into his back for traction as she pressed up against him even more. She screwed her eyes shut because if she opened them and saw him watching her she would completely lose it and she wanted this paradise to last more than a few minutes. But then he pressed one of his fingers, his damn delightful, artistic, elegant, thick fingers into her and she gave up.

“Ben!” she cried out and he groaned again, giving an extra swirl of his tongue over her clit. Her hips jerked and he pressed another of his fingers inside her and rubbed just where he knew it was going to completely drive her out of her mind. Her fingers twitched and she cried out, only her shoulders left on the floor. One more thrust of his fingers and her body went rigid and a guttural cry poured forth. “Oh fffuuuuucck!”

She opened her eyes several seconds later to see Ben smiling up at her, still slowly suckling her clit. He flicked his tongue against it and her whole body jerked with the hot sensation. “Feeling better, love?”

She nodded, still unsure if she could talk in coherent words, much less sentences.

“You still want my zip to go down?”

She pointed one finger at him and jerked it downward. He laughed, his nose wrinkling and sat back on his haunches to finish undoing the zip. Victoria sat up and crawled towards him and pushed him backwards. He toppled and she yanked at his jeans, grabbing his pants with them, and pulled them off, leaving him naked except for his adorable socks.

She crawled upwards and straddled his hips, grabbing his already erect cock and giving it a few strokes before she brought it to the entrance of her pussy. Her knees slipped out to the sides and she sank herself onto him with one sure movement.  Her head fell back as she sheathed him, feeling herself stretching delightfully around him. She paused for a few seconds, listening to his groan and relishing the feel of him inside her again before she began to move, rocking her hips back and forth.

“Oh, god, Vic. You feel amazing.” Ben gripped her breasts, savoring their new fullness and weight. He caught her nipples between his fingers and squeezed, feeling them harden and take on a deeper shade of pink than he was used to. She continued to ride him and he brought his feet up to his arse so he could thrust with more power. Ben began to move with her and she rested her hands on his chest, leaning forward so she could press back against each of his thrusts. Her hair fell around them and he caught a whiff of the sweet spicy perfume she wore just for him.

“Fuck, love, I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna last.” His hand had gotten old in the time they’d spent apart, even with her on the phone or Skype urging him on, and feeling her scalding hot and sopping around his cock was like heaven and hell together.

“Just go,” she muttered before she gasped out a broken breath as he thrust into her again. “Yes, yes, yes, goooooo,” she whimpered again and her head dropped forward as her hips frantically circled.

“Now, Vic, come with me now!” he grunted out as he grabbed her hips and thrust up with all the force he could muster. She cried out, and on his next thrust she screamed. Her body trembled as she threw her head back, and he couldn’t move as her pussy clenched around his cock. The feel of her convulsing was enough and he groaned as he released himself deep inside her. Both of them shook before she collapsed on his chest. They fought for breath together and he took her face in his hands and kissed her all over, tasting the salt of her sweat before he kissed her lips. “Is that the welcome home you wanted?”

“Uhhuh.” That was as eloquent as she could be with no blood flowing to her brain.

Ben grinned and his laughter made her shake as she rested on top of him.

“Should I just plan on fucking you on the entry way floor as soon as I get home from here on out?”

“Uhhuh.”

His fingers combed through her hair. “And do you want your present now or do you want to wait until after dinner at Hakkasan tonight?”

Her head jerked up. “You bought me a gift?”

“Of course.”

“Oh.” She covered her face with her hand. “I thought you only got one for the lima beans.” She was still searching for a nickname for the children. Neither her nor Ben had been able to settle on one, so they just used random fruits and vegetables as inspiration struck them.

He leaned forward enough to kiss the tip of her nose. “I am not a complete idiot when it comes to women, darling. I kept it in my carryon because unlike those giraffes, this would be much more expensive to replace.”

“I completely overreacted, didn’t I? I should know better by now.”

“You’ll learn. And I’ll learn that just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean you need or want to be celibate.”

She giggled and rested her head on his chest again, listening to his heart. “I have never been this horny in my life. Is this what being a teenage boy is like?”

“Well, I don’t know many teenage boys to have such exquisite breasts, but if you want another orgasm already, then yes, very much like.”

“I do. Though can we be boring and have the next one in the bed?”

She rolled off of him as he laughed. He stood first and then helped her slowly to her feet, making sure she wasn’t going to faint as before he let go of her. “You go get on the bed, and I’ll get your gift and meet you in there.” She bent over to pick up their scattered clothes but he stopped her. “I’ve got those. You go lay down.” He swatted her bum lightly and she kissed him on the cheek before she went up the stairs.

He came into the bedroom a few minutes later with a small box in his hand which he set in between her breasts. “I know it’s no toy giraffe, but I hope you like it. You wear your hair up when we go out together and you always have the most beautiful ornaments pinned in there somehow, and this made me think of you.”

She plucked the box off of her chest before she sat up and opened it. It was a beautiful pomegranate, split open with rubellite seeds, and the stem end set with small faceted diamonds. “This is gorgeous.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you.”

“It made me think about Hades and Persephone. I know I’m gone a lot, but I want you to know that just as spring will always follow winter, I will always come home to you. I love you, darling.”

Victoria wiped away the tears that were threatening to spill over. That was one pregnancy side effect she could do without, thank you very much. She cried over ads on the telly these days. “I love you, too, Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch. I’ll wear it when we go out to dinner tonight.” She leaned forward and kissed him again, weaving her fingers into his hair. “Though you’re crazy if you think that you’re going to get reservations for Hakkasan on this short notice. Even  _your_  fame only goes so far.”

He took the box from her and set it on the nightstand and then kissed his new bride. He wrapped his arm around her  and gently lowered her to the bed again, smiling as her hair formed a halo around her on the pillow. “I made reservations before I left. After two months without getting to love on you at every moment, I made sure that I could take you to your favorite restaurant the evening I got back.”

Victoria didn’t move for a moment, caught up in the way he was looking at her, love and adoration in his face. A pang of guilt at her earlier behavior shot through her. She should have known better. He had never given her a reason to think she was less than paramount in his affections. She stroked her fingers delicately across his cheekbone and then down his jaw. “And how can I love on you in this moment, darling?” she finally asked.

His hand settled on her hip and then slowly slid down her leg, stroking her skin before wrapping around her calf and hooking it around his hip. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”


	9. The Interval

In the end it was the most retweeted picture of Benedict ever, and it wasn’t even him photobombing someone else. It was him holding his newborn sons, Timothy Jacob in the left arm and Carlton Jasper in his right, with the biggest smile on his face that the world had ever produced.

But that was in the end.

In the beginning, there was labor.

***

The only person who had better theatre etiquette than the trained actors he knew was his wife. Maybe it was because she had been on the stage so much growing up, but she was a martinet when it came to showing up on early, sitting quietly, and not putting heads together. She’d even been known to give people the evil eye for sniffing too loudly. That’s why it surprised him so much when she crawled over him in the middle of Act II to get to the aisle and hurried out.

He didn’t worry when she didn’t come back; she would have waited until the interval to do so. He thought she’d just had to use the ladies room. Both of the little boys delighted in bouncing on her bladder with utter abandon, and her bathroom breaks were becoming more and frequent. When he made his way to the lobby at the interval and saw her, however, he began to worry. Her eyes were pinched shut, she was holding her stomach with both hands, and her rosy lips were open in a small o as she breathed. He hurried across the huge space to her, his long legs stretching to their fullest.

He placed one of his hands over hers. “Are you alright?”

She opened one eye and looked at him. He’d seen her give kinder looks to people who texted and ate things with crinkly wrappers during a play.

“Right, dumb question. You think this is it?” She’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions off and on for the last four weeks and they’d already made two trips to the midwife only to be sent back home.

“Look at my face. Has my face  _ever_  looked like this before?”

Ben shook his head. “So I’m going to go get our coats and I’ll be right back, alright?”

“No.” She grabbed his hand. “You are not going anywhere. You are staying right here with me.”

Benedict looked around and grabbed the nearest person. “Excuse me, my wife’s gone into labor.” He plucked the check tags from his pocket and thrust them into the woman’s hand. “Could you go get our coats for us?”

The woman took one look at Victoria and her stomach and nodded. “Of course.”

Victoria grabbed his hand and squeezed as another contraction started. Ben had no idea what to do so he just let her break all of the bones in his hand. They began to gather a little crowd of onlookers as people realized what was going on. Ben saw a flash out of the corner of his eye and whipped his head around. “Do you mind?” he snarled. Everyone took a few steps back. Luckily, the woman came back with their coats and he helped Victoria out of the theatre. Two more contractions came and went as they walked to their car, and they stopped as she breathed through them and Ben rubbed her back.

The midwife met them at the birthing center. Victoria had wanted a home birth but the midwife wanted her closer to medical care because twins had higher rates of complications during delivery. Ben had wanted someone to develop a transporter so they could just beam the babies out of his wife’s stomach without her suffering. They were using the same midwife that Tom and Anna had used and Ben had picked Tom’s brain about labor and what he should do and felt as prepared as he could be. There was one flaw with his preparation though. Anna had wanted to curl up and be quiet while she labored. Victoria couldn’t sit still. And so they walked. And walked and walked and walked some more. It was like some Dantean circle of hell as they did laps of the hallways and Victoria got quieter and more focused with each circuit. Every ten rounds they would stop and Greta would check the babies heartbeats and send them on their way again.

Finally, as dawn began to peek through the blinds in their room on one of their pit stops with Greta, Victoria said, “I’m going to push now.”

“Are you supposed to do that?” Ben asked in a panic. Did she get to decide that? Wasn’t a doctor supposed to come in and tell her whether or not she could do that?

The look Greta gave him was even worse than the one from his wife.

“Right. Pushing. Time for pushing.”

Greta checked Victoria for dilation and pronounced her fully dilated and after checking the babies’ heart rates one more time, said, “You’re ready.”

She quickly called for extra help and a few nurses joined them. With two babies instead of one she would need extra hands, and with Victoria just shy of 37 weeks, there was the possibility of complications.

Once Victoria sat on the birthing stool, Ben felt much calmer. This was what Tom had described, and now all the pain would be for a reason. He understood the purpose of contractions, but he didn’t see a result from that so it was grating to see his wife suffer. Here, though, there would be a baby. Two actually. As much as it was going to hurt, and he never wanted to see Victoria in pain, at least it made sense.

And then she didn’t scream. He had expected screaming. But she just gritted her teeth and pushed. Silent as stone. He could see every muscle in her arms in perfect definition as she gripped him and one of the nurses. Greta’s quiet voice let her know how well she was doing and how she was progressing. Ben whispered in her ear words of love and support and wiped away the sweat with a flannel and spooned ice chips into her mouth when she would stick out her tongue.

Complete silence except for him and Greta.

And then the sound of a baby crying.

Victoria laughed and then sobbed. Greta wrapped the squalling infant in a blanket and handed the tiny bundle to Victoria who took it with shaking arms. “Oh my god,” she whispered, “you are the most precious thing I have ever seen, baby. You’re so tiny.”

Ben brushed a fingertip over the small cheek and little Timothy stopped crying.

Victoria smiled up at her husband. “I think he likes you.”

“I love him. And I love you.”

She bit her lip and her eyes clenched shut. Ben took the baby, kissed him on his forehead and handed him to a nurse and took up Victoria’s hand again. It only took the second one fifteen minutes to enter the world, but there were tears streaming down her face by the third push.

“Victoria, I need you to stop pushing for a minute. Little one’s sunny side up and I need to shift him a bit, dear.”

Her head fell back and she stared at the ceiling, biting her lips between her teeth as her hand clamped down on Ben’s with more force than he’d felt all night. It was just a minute before Greta said, “Alright. You push when you feel urge.”

She went silent again and no more tears fell, just gritted teeth and panting between each push.

And then another cry, identical to the first, sounded in the room and Victoria slumped against Ben and he knelt next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He kissed her gently, tasting a mix of tears and sweat, and smoothed her damp hair back from her face. “I’ve never been more in awe of you than I am right now, Vic. You amaze me, darling.”

Greta handed up another blanket-wrapped bundle and from there on out it just became a blur of babies and nurses and the smallest nappies he had ever seen. A pediatrician came in and pronounced them perfectly healthy and not in need of any intensive care. Victoria showered and finally laid down on the large bed while the babies were being washed and then sat up enough to try nursing. She tucked one under each arm like a rugby ball and Greta moved the babies and Victoria’s breasts around until everything lined up and then the two little boys set to nursing with gusto.

Ben sat on the edge of the bed and cried as he took in the blissful expression on his wife’s face. He wasn’t sure if Vic had forgotten the pain of the last several hours, but he had. All he could remember was each baby’s face as he had been placed in his mother’s arms. Greta swaddled each baby when he was done eating and handed them to him. “Here dad, you hold your boys while I check on your wife.”

Ben kept looking back and forth between his sons, two little identical bundles of perfection that were his. He was going to get to take them home, and read to them, and play with them, and teach them oh-so-many things. These were his. He kissed each of them on their foreheads, taking a deep breath of that lovely newborn baby smell. “The only problem here, boys, is that I can’t take a picture with my arms full.”

When Greta was done checking Victoria, she picked up his mobile from where he had left it earlier after documenting tiny fingers and toes and wisps of hair. “Smile for the camera, you three.”

That was the picture he sent to Tom. “15 Nov, 2016, 8:25 am and 8:45am. Timothy Jacob and Carlton Jasper, both 5 pounds 12 ounces; both 19 inches long. We’re all healthy and incredibly happy.” He sent it along with a request. “Please share the picture and news on your twitter. I’ve never been happier and I want to share the news with the whole world.”


	10. The Village

Victoria insisted they were doing fine, but when Anna and Tom showed up on the doorstep with dinner, she could have cried with relief. Wills waved happily at Victoria from his spot on Tom’s hip. “We’re here to help, whether you like it or not,” Anna said as and Tom held up bags of food.

Twenty minutes later, Ben and Victoria were both eating a hot dinner without having to hold a baby at the same time, Anna had started a load of laundry and was folding another one while carrying both sleeping infants in a wrap, and Tom was busy feeding Wills Cheerios while simultaneously trying to keep him from removing all the books from the bookshelf. He was at the stage where he was still creeping along holding on to things, and bookshelves not only helped him stay up, they came pre-loaded with projectile weapons.

Victoria watched her swaying back and forth while folding receiving blankets. “You make it look so easy.” She barely had the energy to get her fork to her mouth.

Anna smiled at Victoria. “I also got a full night’s sleep last night and didn’t give birth, twice, four days ago.”

“I don’t think I remember what a full night’s sleep is like.”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think I remember sleep.”

Tom scooped up Wills and deposited him in one of the high chairs sitting to the side in the dining room. “You realize they won’t use these for months, right?”

Victoria laughed and shoved the hair that had escaped her messy bun out of her face. “I assembled those in a fit of nesting last week. Everything had to be just perfect or they would never come out.”

Anna laughed. “I remember that feeling. Tom found me scrubbing the baseboards in the kitchen at eight and a half months. Lucky for me he did, or I wouldn’t have been able to get back up off the floor.”

Tom dug through the diaper bag and pulled out some containers of food. Small cubes of cheese, tidbits of pineapple, halved grapes and crackers were placed on the tray and Wills carefully  picked up each piece with his thumb and index finger and shoved it in his mouth. “It does get easier when they start sleeping through the night and can feed themselves a bit.”

“I hope so,” Victoria sighed. “Right now I feel like a cow. I’m feel like I’m constantly nursing.”

“How’s your supply?” Anna asked.

“Can’t you tell? My boobs feel like they’re the size of watermelons.”

“Lots of wet nappies from both of them?”

Victoria laughed. “Stop being a doctor. I’ve got one of those. And Greta came by this morning to check on the wee ones. Right now I just need a friend.”

“Well, friend,” Anna carefully sat down at the table, making sure not to disturb either of the infants strapped to her chest, “I remember how hard the first six weeks were, and for twins I’m betting it’s going to be three months, so I talked to the girls and we’re bringing in dinner three times a week for the next three months, and I’ll be over twice a week for a few hours during which time both of you are going to nap.”

Victoria and Ben both protested, but Tom just smiled and picked up the cracker that Wills had flung off the high chair. “It won’t do any good. She’s got her mind made up, and she made a spreadsheet and everything.” Wills threw another cracker and it bounced off the side of Ben’s face. Ben picked up the cracker off the table and handed it back to Wills, who threw it again. Ben picked it up and very dramatically stuck it in his mouth and chewed. Wills’ eyes got big and he looked to his Dad. Tom shrugged. “That’s what happens, buddy. You keep throwing your food away and someone else is going to eat it.” Wills picked up another cracker, looked at Ben with squinted eyes, and then very carefully put it in his own mouth. “Good choice, kid.”

“We’ll be fine, Anna. Really,” Victoria insisted.

“Yes, and as your friend, I want you to be better than fine. People didn’t use to raise infants all by themselves. Families were close, neighbors helped. We’re here to help now, just like you helped out so much when Wills was born. And next time Tom and I have a baby, you’ll return the favor.”

Tears slipped from Victoria’s eyes. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this helps.”

“I have half an idea. Now, you’ve finished eating. Go take a nice hot shower, and then when you’re done, I think these two will be hungry again.”

Victoria slowly stood up and rubbed her back for a few moments. “A shower sounds amazing.” She picked up her plate but Tom took it from her hand.

“I’ve got the dishes. Go take a shower.”

Victoria smiled and walked towards the staircase. When she was a few steps up, Tom turned to Ben. “Go wash your wife’s hair.”

“I don’t want to be rude and just leave you two by yourselves.”

“Go. It’s why we’re here. We’ve got everything else under control. You two can have half an hour to yourselves. Trust me, a shower and clean clothes make a world of difference in the first few weeks.”

Another cracker bounced off of Ben, and he looked at Wills. “Fine, chap. I’ll go. No need to throw things at me.”

Ben pushed himself up from the table and followed after his wife. Tom turned to Anna and held out his hands. “Stop hogging all the babies.”

Anna quietly laughed and extracted one of the infants from the wrap and handed him to Tom, who unbuttoned the top few buttons on his shirt and popped him inside to keep him warm. Tom bent down and kissed the top of the baby’s head and then inhaled deeply. “They still have that amazing newborn smell. I wish someone could bottle that and anytime I was having a bad day, I could just open the bottle and take a whiff.”

Anna shifted the baby she still had and bent down for an inhale. “It is amazing. Wills doesn’t smell like this anymore.”

Tom kept his hands protectively over the infant, who was still all bunched up, feet pulled up under his bottom. “I remember when Wills was this tiny, when I could still hold all of him in two hands.”

“Da!” Wills threw a piece of pineapple at his dad.

“Yes, I’m talking about you. You used to be this small.” Tom gently patted the baby’s back.

“Sma!”

“That’s right. You were small. But now you’re a big boy.”

“Big!” He went back to eating, picking up three cubes of cheese in his chubby fist and trying to shove them all in his mouth at the same time.

Tom scratched his forehead. “Remind me to clean the high chair before we leave.” He turned to look at his wife and found her with her lips pressed to the baby’s head, her eyes closed. “What are you thinking, love?”

“I know it’s crazy, especially having evidence right in front of me of how exhausting those first few months are, but I want another one.”

Tom peered down at the tiny baby and ran a fingertip over the small red bunched up fist. “I don’t think that’s crazy.”

“You don’t?”

“No. You’ve got a mother heart. Of course you want more children.”

Anna sat silently for a few minutes, watching Tom cuddle the sleeping infant, running his fingers over the wisps of fine hair and the soft little cheek. “And you? Do you want more?”

Tom bent down and kissed the baby’s head again. “I do. I feel like our family isn’t finished yet.”

Anna nodded and swallowed down the lump in her throat. She kissed the tiny little child on top of its head, feeling the pulse of its heart through the soft spot. “So I guess the question then is when do we start trying again? Wills just had his birthday, so they’d be almost two years apart if it happened soon.”

Tom watched Anna holding the baby, its fingers wrapped around her pinky, as it calmly slept, lulled into slumber by the beat of her heart and the soothing rise and fall of her chest. Tom had fallen asleep many times with his head right there, and so had Wills. It was the best place in the world. “Why don’t we start tonight?”

A few tears glistened in her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes. When we get home, I’ll give Wills a bath and put him to bed, and then I’ll come put you to bed as well.”

When Ben and Tora made it back downstairs, freshly scrubbed and in clean pyjamas, they found Anna and Tom lounging in the living room, each cuddling an infant, and Wills sitting in the middle of the floor working on stacking colorful rings.

Victoria collapsed on the sofa. “Oh my god, I feel like a new person.” Her hair was still wet and she braided it quickly and tossed it behind her shoulder.

“Oh, that’s right,” Tom whispered to Timothy. “That was your mama’s voice. You recognized that, didn’t you?” A tiny hand flailed in response. “Yes, it was. That was your mama. Are you getting hungry again?”

“They better be getting hungry. I need to nurse.” She pulled a big c-shaped pillow off of the back of the sofa and positioned it around her waist. Ben held out his hands to Tom and Tom carefully placed the baby in his friend’s large hands. Ben tucked him against his chest, both hands splayed protectively around his son, and swayed a few times before taking him over to the sofa and handing him to Victoria, who positioned the baby on the pillow and then pulled up her shirt.

Tom stood. “I’m going to go do the dishes.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Tom. I’m so used to my boobs being out after the last few days I don’t even think about it.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve seen Anna nurse enough times where it doesn’t even register anymore. But I need to clean up the high chair as well. I think my son managed to smash pineapple into the crevasses.”

Once Victoria had Timothy attached, Ben took Carlton from Anna and gave him to Victoria, who tucked him under her other arm on the pillow and got him latched on as well. After about thirty seconds, Victoria sighed in relief.

“Let down?”

“I’ve got so much milk I feel like I could hit a target at twenty paces.”

Wills crawled over to the sofa and pulled himself to a stand using Ben’s knees. He looked at Victoria and back at Ben. “Bees?”

“Yes, those are babies.”

“Mik?”

Ben looked at Anna, an eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Yes, she’s giving them milk.”

Wills dropped down on his padded bottom and crawled over to Anna as fast as possible. He pulled himself up to a stand and held up his hands. “Up!”

Anna leaned over and picked him up and settled him in her lap.

“Mik!”

“Yes, she’s giving her babies milk.”

Wills pulled at Anna’s shirt and patted her breast. “Mik!”

“You want milk?”

Wills scrunched up his face and yanked at her shirt. “Me! Mik!”

Anna grabbed Wills hand. “What are you supposed to say?”

“Pweese!”

Anna reached up under her shirt and adjusted her bra and then stuck Wills’ head under there as well.

“You’re still nursing?” Victoria asked.

“Usually only once a day, just at bedtime. It’s more a comfort thing for him than anything. I think he’s just a little jealous right now.” She stood up, wrapping an arm around Wills to keep him secure. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go check on the laundry and give you four some peace and quiet.”

Ben scooted over closer to Victoria and put his arm around her shoulder. She rested her head against him. “She makes it look so easy. Doing laundry while nursing.”

“Well, she does have a year of practice. And, she’s only nursing one.” He brushed a finger over the tiny hand that was resting against the swell of his wife’s breast, and carefully traced each miraculous little finger.

“Do you think all of this will be easier in a year?”

Ben kissed her temple. “Yes, I do.”

“I hope so.”

“Remember what the book said, and what Greta said. The first few months with twins are just about survival. You’re doing amazing.”

Victoria closed her eyes and let her head sink against Ben’s comforting warmth. “I’m constantly afraid I’m going to do something wrong.”

“You’re feeding them. You’re keeping them warm and clean. You’re loving them. That’s all they really need right now, sweetheart. You’re a wonderful mother.”

When Tom and Anna came back into the living room, Tom had Wills in the wrap, sound asleep against his father’s chest. Victoria and Ben were asleep as well, each of them with a sleeping infant against their skin and a brightly colored blanket tucked over them. Anna gently touched Victoria’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s put you in bed. You’ll sleep better there.” She picked up the sleeping baby and wrapped him in the blanket. Victoria stood and Ben stirred at the movement. He stood up, keeping his hand firmly wrapped around the baby. Anna followed them upstairs and quickly swaddled the one she was holding before placing him gently in the crib. Ben handed her his son. “You’re better at that than I am.” She swaddled the second little one and placed him in the crib as well, next to his brother. They both turned their faces so they were looking at each other, and then their little eyes closed again. Anna watched them for a long moment, dreaming of when she’d be swaddling another infant of her own. When she turned around, Ben and Victoria were both already asleep. She shut the door quietly behind her.

Tom carefully lowered Wills into his car seat, managing to get him buckled in without waking him, and then ran his hand lovingly over the head of blond curls. He closed the car door and then leaned back against it and pulled Anna into his arms. “You ready to start this journey again?”

“I am.”

“So am I.” He raised one hand to the back of her head and held her for a long slow kiss. “Let’s go home and I’ll get you pregnant.”


	11. The First Time Without Mum

Ben laid on his stomach looking at his two sons. All three of them rested on their forearms, their heads lifted to regard each other solemnly. “Alright boys, your mum has left the house. No crying, we can do this. I know this is a big deal because mum’s never left you two before, but she needed a little bit of alone time. But don’t fear; I have some big plans for our hour together.”

Vic had sworn to be back in an hour as Ben had shoved her out the door. She needed some time off from being Chief Lactation Officer but felt guilty about actually leaving the bubs with anyone. Ben took the first activity out of the basket he’d assembled. “This is  _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_.”

Tim and Jasper watched wide-eyed as Ben read the book aloud. Half way through Tim said, “Pbbbbbbt.”

“Oh really, son of mine? Is that a commentary on the text or my performance of it?”

Jasper took this opportunity to add his own thoughts. “Pbbbbbbbbt.”

“Alright then. On to something else.” He put the book aside and the two little boys began to blow raspberries at each other and laugh. Ben marveled at their ability to entertain each other. They still slept in the same cot because they would cry if separated. They flopped over onto their backs and shrieked in delight as their hands and feet collided with each other. Their favorite chew toys were each other’s fists.

Ben sat back. Maybe he had over prepared for an hour with his kids. Vic had topped them off right before she left and they both had clean nappies and were sharing their giant playmat. Everything was going to be just fine.

Fifteen minutes later, he looked up from his book as one of them made a distinctive liquidy explosive noise. He sighed and put his book down. Grabbing the nappy basket he pulled out a mat and put it on the floor. “Alright, you two. Which one did the doo?”

He picked up Tim and sniffed. Not him. Tim got returned to the playmat and he picked up Jasper. Poo dribbled down his leg. Ben arched an eyebrow. “Poosplosion on dad’s watch? I thought we were bros.” He put Jasper on the mat and unsnapped the now soiled onesie and then pulled it off over Jasper’s head, making sure not to smear anything in his delicate blond hair. He undid the diaper and reached for a wipe just as Tim smeared his hand through the poo that Jasper had managed to leave on the playmat. Ben grabbed Tim’s hand right before the baby shoved it in his mouth.

“Okay, child. That’s just disgusting.” The wipe got used to carefully clean off every wrinkle and fold of Timothy’s hand.  Another wipe was used to clean the playmat. He grabbed Jasper by the ankle just as the boy was about to flip over and smear more poo all over. “Not yet mister. And how did you get poo this far up your back?” It was practically up to his neck. Ben bunched the nappy front in his hand and scrubbed down the front of his kid’s privates. As soon as he took it off Jasper peed. Not just a little pee, but a fountain of pee. It was like he was auditioning to be installed in La Trevi.

Ben’s hand just caused the pee to splatter as he grabbed for a nappy and dropped it on his kid. He pulled off his wet shirt and another wipe got used to clean his chest. He looked at the chubby cheeked baby. “You done?”

Jasper grinned and blew another raspberry, complete with spit bubbles.

“Yeah, same to you, bud.” He tentatively lifted the diaper but it did seem that the child was done. Jasper grabbed for his penis but Ben deflected the hand like a karate master. “No grabbing the twig and berries when they’ve got poop on them. Also, that’s probably something you should do in private, kid.”

Several more wipes were used, but he finally got Jasper completely cleaned off, in a new nappy, and snapped into a new onesie, this one with robots on it. He cradled his son against his chest for a few moments and then kissed the top of his head. He moved to put Jasper back on the playmat only to notice that Tim was no longer there. A few feet away, off of his playmat and lying on the carpet, was his other child. “When did you learn to do that?”

Timothy demonstrated another roll and inched further away.

“That’s great!” He was sure that it was great, but a future of putting his child down and him no longer being there when he came back loomed ahead of him as terrifying as the Sphinxes’ Gate.

Timothy grinned and then farted. The sound made both Jasper and Tim giggle but Ben wrinkled his nose as another wave of stench assaulted him. He hurriedly put Jasper on the playmat and lunged for Tim, but too late. There was already poop on the carpet.

“You know what? We’re changing brands of nappies.” Timothy gurgled a question. “Yeah. We are.”

Ben stretched out on the floor with his sons, the three of them on their forearms and regarding each other seriously. All three of them were wearing new shirts. Ben had just finished cleaning the poop out of the carpet and discarding of the soiled nappies and wipes and spot treating the onesies and leaving them to soak. He couldn’t remember the last time there hadn’t been a tub of soaking baby laundry in his house. Probably the day before they were born. “Okay, men. This is time for us to step up. No telling mum that we had any problems, alright? If we do, she’ll never leave again until you’re off to Harrow.”

Timothy and Jasper both grinned at him. He held out his hand and they flapped at it, both managing to make contact. “Right. Gentlemen’s agreement in place.” He kissed both of their heads as he heard the front door open.

“I’m home!” Vic walked into the front room and smiled as she saw all her boys on the floor together. “Any problems?”

Ben looked at his sons and they gurgled at him. He looked up at his wife who appeared five years younger than she had an hour again. “Nope. Everything was great.”


	12. The Sequel

Victoria calmly looked at the image on the monitor and then at Greta perched on the stool. “No.”

The old woman’s face wrinkled in confusion. “What was that?”

“I said no. Get that thing out of me.”

Greta looked at the monitor and then at Ben, her eyebrows knit together in concern. “What thing, dear?”

“That ultrasound thing. Get it out. Now.”

Greta carefully removed the ultrasound wand. Vic hopped off the table and began to untie the thin blue patient gown she was wearing.

Ben tore his eyes away from the tiny grey jelly beans on the monitor – twins! again! – and turned to his wife. “Love, calm down.”

Victoria stopped fumbling with the snaps to wave a wicked finger at Ben. “Don’t you ‘calm down’ me, mister. This is all your fault anyway so don’t you dare tell me to calm down.”

Ben’s mouth dropped open. “How is this my fault?”

“I think I’m going to let you two have a few minutes.” Greta walked as fast as she could to the door and escaped.

“It’s your fault, Mr. Wonderschlong, because you broke the fucking condom.”

Ben ran a hand through his hair, disheveling his curls even more. He’d been running late this morning and hadn’t had time to do anything with them. “It’s not like I did that on purpose. It was an accident.”

“Yeah, well your accident means I’m pregnant with twins again.” She stopped in the middle of the room and balled up the hospital gown. Her eyes were so wide that he could see white all around the iris. “I can’t do this, Ben. Seriously. Not won’t. Can’t.”

He went to her and stroked his hands up and down his arms. “You’ll do fine, and I’ll help as much as I can.”

Her laughter could have cut glass. “You’ll help. That’s hysterical. You’re gone for weeks at a time and I’ll have four babies.  _Four babies,_ Benedict. Four babies under two. Four babies in nappies.  The poop is going to be never ending.  I am going to smell vaguely of poop and spit up for the rest of my life.”

“I think you’re probably overreacting.”

She wrenched away from him. “Oh my god I am actually going to kill you right now.”

“Vic,” he dodged the tube of ultrasound gel she chucked at his head, “they’re not going to be babies forever. We’ll get through this.”

“I can’t decide whether to make you cancel every project you have for the next five years so you’ll be there too or make you sign up for seven more so we’ll be able to afford nappies for  _four babies!”_ A box of tissues was hurled at him and he deflected it with his hand.

“We could try cloth.”

“You are  _fucking insane,”_ this time it was a clear plastic mug emblazoned with a hospital logo that served as an impromptu projectile, _“_ if you think I am going to try and do cloth nappies with  _four babies._ ”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, so no cloth nappies. We’ll be fine, darling. I promise. You’ll be fine. We’ll get a nanny or two and we’ll figure this out.” She crumpled to the floor and began to sob. Ben hurried to her, sinking to the floor and pulling her into his lap. “I swear, love, we will get through this. Whatever you need, I will provide. I promise. I know I can’t actually carry the babies, but anything else.”

Her hands trembled and she jammed them into her armpits to hide it. “Being pregnant was so hard, Ben. Just thinking about going through that again makes me hurt and I have no idea how I’m going to manage being pregnant with twins while two toddlers are running around. Do you remember how enormous I was at the end? I won’t be able to pick them up and my lap is going to disappear and I’m going to be exhausted all the time.”

Ben kissed her on her forehead. “We’ll figure it out. I think we should probably start looking for a nanny and get one hired to help with Tim and Jasper in the next few months and that way all the changes don’t happen at once.”

Victoria rested her head against his shoulder and didn’t say anything for a long while. Ben had learned his lesson and kept silent while he stroked her hair. “She has to be old,” she finally muttered.

“If that’s what you want.”

“Or a guy.”

“Whatever makes you happy, dear.”

“And I want tickets to every production of the Royal Ballet.”

Ben bit the insides of his cheeks to keep from laughing. The only time she’d missed one to this point was during those first few post-partum months. “Of course.”

She sat up enough so she could look him in the eyes. “For the rest of my life.”

Ben nodded. “I will make sure that happens.” He drew a cross over his heart with a finger.

“And you’re,” she poked him in the chest, “responsible for getting a sitter if one is needed, even if you’re away filming on another continent.”

“As you wish.”

“Jerk,” she muttered and then smiled. That’s the film they had been watching the night the condom broke. Vic sniffled once more and then rubbed her hands over her cheeks. “Well. I guess we should let Greta in before she thinks I killed you and snuck out the window.”

Ben cupped her face in his big hands, his fingers messing up her carefully styled hair, and kissed her. “I love you, Mrs. Cumberbatch.”

Victoria gave him a watery smile and kissed him back. “I love you, too.”


	13. Tired

Ben quietly closed the bedroom door behind him and slid on his sock feet across the hardwood floor, not wanting to risk even the noise of a footfall from disturbing Victoria as she slept. He’d volunteered to do the bedtime baths and stories by himself tonight so that she could go to bed early. The first trimester had been exhausting without toddlers to chase around; with them she was running on will power alone.

He stood at the bedside and looked down at his slumbering wife, aching at the dark circles under her eyes that he couldn’t get to go away no matter how much he did to lighten her load when he was home. Not for the first time the idea of pulling out of the next project crossed his mind. His beautiful rose was wilting under the demands her body and her family were putting on her and he wasn’t doing enough to prevent it.

As quietly as he had come in, he turned around and left. Finding his mobile on the entry table, he poured himself a nightcap and sat on the old sofa he loved so much and began to make calls.

>< 

Victoria opened one eye and peered blearily at the clock on the nightstand. _Nine-fifty._ Her eye drifted back shut and then she sat bolt upright in bed.  _Nine-fifty?_  She couldn’t remember for sure the last time she had slept that late, but she was positive that it was before the boys had been born. Thoughts of crib death wracked her brain as she scrambled from the bed and went tearing down the hall to the nursery. The cribs were empty. She sank against the door frame with a heaving sigh of relief before worries about where they were and where her husband was and why she couldn’t hear  _any_  noise bubbled up.

Her feet slapped noisily down the stairs and she skidded to a halt as she saw Ben sitting at the kitchen table reading while sipping a cup of tea. There was no evidence of the children anywhere. “Where are the boys?”

“I gave them away.”

“You did  _what?”_

The crinkle lines around his eyes appeared as he began to laugh. He crossed the room to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I fed them breakfast and took them to your sister’s for the day. You need more sleep than you’re getting.” His hands made their way under his Brooklyn Bridge t-shirt that she had absconded with for a nightgown. “So, today your job is to rest and to look through the profiles the service sent over.” He kissed her good morning and sat her at the table and shoved his iPad over so she could see what he’d been looking at.

Victoria began to scroll through the profiles of prospective nannies. “Do we really need a nanny?”

“Yes.” Ben put a bowl of granola, yoghurt, and berries in front of her and sat in the other chair. “As you so politely yelled at me, we’re going to have four babies, and I’ll be gone a lot. You’re exhausted all the time and it’s been so long since you’ve laughed that I’ve almost forgotten what it sounds like.” He brushed her hair back from her face. It lacked its normal shine.

Victoria’s eyes sagged closed at his gentle touch and she nudged her face into his palm. “It sort of feels like I’ve failed. Like, I should be able to run a household.”

“You’ll still be running the home, Vic. You’re just going to have help. We’re getting a nanny and I’m hiring someone to come in once a week and do all the heavy cleaning and then someone to come in and mow the grass.” Victoria opened her mouth in protest and he touched his fingers to her bottom lip. “We can still plant flowers and such, but as much of the things we don’t enjoy as possible is getting outsourced so we have more time for each other and the children.” He brushed his hand over the tiny swell of her belly. “All  _four_  of them.” He couldn’t help but grin at the thought of being a father of four.

Victoria crossed her arms on the table, pillowed her head on them, and began to cry.

Ben had not expected this reaction. The spontaneous crying had been more of a third trimester thing last time. Besides, this was good news. Or at least, he thought it had been. He had  _meant_  for it to be. “Hey. Hey!” He pulled her into his arms. “Why are you crying?”

“Because it’s such a relief.” Her shoulders shook even as she tried to talk. “I was trained to be a prima. I’m supposed to be able to do it all by myself, but I can’t and I was falling apart and you noticed and you fixed it.”

He held her tightly against his chest, one large hand cradling the back of her head as his other hand stroked up and down her back. “I love you, Vic.”

She grabbed his face with both hands and gave him a loud kiss. “I can tell. You show me every day.” She smiled and a bit of the familiar sparkle that he had missed recently reappeared in her eyes. “Now, tell me a joke.”

“Why?”

“So you can remember the sound of my laugh.”  

She sat back down at the table and ate her breakfast, and Ben held her feet in his lap and rubbed them and told her jokes until her laughter filled the house again.


	14. Pillows

Ben finished brushing his teeth and spit into the sink.

“I hate you,” Victoria yelled from their bedroom.

He rinsed out his mouth and then dried his face on a hand towel. “I know.”

There were a few thumping sounds as he yawned and stretched. Today had been a long day and he was exhausted. He couldn’t wait to get into bed, but he knew better than to attempt that particular feat right now.

“I really, really hate you.”

He leaned in the open door of the en suite and watched Victoria arrange her collection of pillows. Three around her head, a long one down her back, one between her knees, another under her stomach, and a final one that she would hold after she got the others situated. He couldn’t feel even the slightest irritation at having to wait for her to get comfortable before he could get into their bed. Her day had been just as long as his, and he wasn’t seven months pregnant with twins. No, she definitely deserved first claim on their bed, and then he would fit himself into whatever space she left him and consider himself lucky.

She glared at him as she pulled the pillow from under her stomach and threw it on the floor. “So much hate.”

He crossed the floor, hardwood planks cool under his bare feet and bent over to pick up the pillow. While down there he also kissed her. “I know.”

She heaved a sigh, his poor wife who loved sleeping on her stomach when he was away from home and snuggled into his side when he was here, and pressed the heel of her hand into the side of her belly.

He tossed the pillow he was holding to his side of the bed – he would now have two – and replaced her hand with his. “Trying to get away from her sister already, is she?” The wall of her abdomen hardened and then relaxed as the baby stopped pushing against him.

“I really hope they get along once they're born.”

“What do you think, girls?” He spoke to Vic’s navel, like it was a passage straight into the womb, though intellectually he knew that wasn’t the way it worked. “Bedtime story and then you go to sleep so your mum can sleep, too?” The bedtime story was as much for Vic’s benefit as for his daughters’. A chapter or two of Christopher Robin and she would be soundly asleep. He reached for the book he left tucked under the bed and opened it to the pale blue ribbon marking where he’d left off. With one hand on her stomach, and one free to turn the pages, he began to read.

Fifteen minutes later he marked the page and closed the book. He shoved it under the bed so she wouldn’t trip on it when she got up in a few hours to visit the loo, or on her way back to bed, where she would have to rearrange the pillows again. He turned off the lights and crawled into bed next to her, pulling up the floral coverlet that was all she could stand to have in the way of blankets while pregnant, and tucking it around her.

He was almost asleep when he heard her.

“Ben?”

It was the barest whisper, as if she were afraid of waking him.

“Love?”

“I don’t really hate you.”

He smiled in the dark. “I know.”

“But you’re getting a vasectomy.”

His smile got wider. Smiling was safe. Laughter was not. He might be able to outrun her in her current unwieldy state, but she would find some way to get revenge eventually.

“I know.”


End file.
